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Alessia Cara Addresses Controversy On Her Best New Artist Win

Alessia Cara won Best New Artist at the 2018 Grammy ceremony, and while it was a happy moment for herself, her fans and her family, many people weren’t please.

Cara received backlash on social media because her debut album, Know-It-All was released in November 2015 and her debut single “Here” was released in April 2015, meaning many did not consider her to be a new artist. However, with the new Grammy rules, an artist can be considered for this category after releasing a debut album. The current rules are:

Must have released a minimum of five singles/tracks or one album, but no more than 30 singles/tracks or three albums.

May not have entered into this category more than three times, including as a performing member of an established group.

Must have achieved a breakthrough into the public consciousness and impacted the musical landscape during the eligibility period.

The Grammys also say:

“Our Best New Artist category probably has the most complicated set of rules of any of our categories. Essentially, a “new artist” is defined for the GRAMMY process as any performing artist or established performing group who releases, during the eligibility year, the recording that first establishes the public identity of that artist or established group as a performer. A GRAMMY nomination in a performance category in a prior year disqualifies an artist from competing in this category, unless the nomination came from a single or a guest spot on another artist’s recording, and the artist hadn’t yet released a full album.”

So the Grammy might consider her song “Stay” with Zedd as the breakout song during the elegiblity period.

The rules of the category are obviously ambiguous and have changed two times this decade already. However, the way people discover and digest music is completely different than how it was even five years ago. Fellow nominee SZA had put out a studio EP, Z, in 2014 and self released other EPs before. Chance The Rapper had released a slew of music via mixtapes before winning Best New Artist in 2017. Basically what people define as “new” will change from person to person, but it doesn’t mean people are any less or more deserving.